Afterwards
by rocketrider231
Summary: *WARNING: SPOILERS FOR THE 2013 EVIL DEAD MOVIE* What if David wasn't distracted by the photo on his way out of the cabin and he and Mia made it out okay? One-Shot.


"Thanks for not leaving me, David." Mia said as she tenderly embraced her older brother. Even though things between them had been pretty distant, at the moment there was not a single thing that would make Mia happier than her brother.

It was time to leave this awful place. They walked to the front porch, where Mia found her boots and put them on as she and David got ready to leave the cabin.

"Wait here." David said, "I'm gonna get the car keys, okay?"

"Yeah." Mia replied as he opened the door and walked inside, slightly limping from the nails that were shot into his shin earlier. When inside, David immediately saw the keys to his good ol' Wrangler on the nightstand. In one swift motion, he swiped the keys off of it and went out the door.

"What should we do with that?" Mia asked, looking down at the ground to the book of the dead that started it all. "Should we burn it?"

"Eric tried before. The book doesn't burn."

"Then let's bury it."

"Okay." David took the book and placed it into the hole where Mia was before, and shoveled all the dirt on top of it. When he emptied the last shovelful onto the grave, he patted the dirt on top of where the book lay, finishing the task.

"We should go." Mia said, seeing that the sun was rising.

"Yeah." David nodded. "Let's go."

"Wait."

"What is it?"

"Don't you think we should do something about Eric, Olivia, and Natalie? Like, something to memorialize them?" Mia had a point since they didn't really have anyone to go back to. Eric didn't have any family, David didn't know Natalie's, and Olivia hadn't talked to hers in years. Therefore, Mia and David felt they needed to do something special for them.

"I've got it." David took his knife out of his pocket, and began to engrave words into the tree closest to the front of the cabin. After a few minutes of doing so, the names 'OLIVIA', 'NATALIE', and 'ERIC' could be seen in the tree trunk.

"One last thing." Mia picked up Grandpa's collar, lying near the tool shed. She took it and strapped it onto a branch of the tree David had just carved the names into.

"We can go now." She said.

David opened the passenger car door for Mia and she stepped into his old car. He went around to the driver's side and got in the seat next to her.

There was silence between the two of them driving down the path. Neither one of them really knew what to say after everything that they had experienced the night before.

"It was horrible." Mia said, finally breaking the silence, "I could see and feel everything, I was fully aware of what was happening. But I couldn't do anything about it."

"Mia, it's okay. Whatever it was isn't with us anymore."

"I watched it all happen."

"I know, Mia-"

"No, you don't know!

"Mia-"

"You don't know what it was like! Have you ever-" Mia stopped herself.

"Mia, listen to me." David said as he pulled over, "I have no idea what you went through and I never will, but I know for a fact it was terrifying. I love you, Mia, and I'm here for you. If you want to talk about it then I'll shut up and listen."

"Okay." Mia and David sat in the car and looked into the wilderness.

"You know, I keep forgetting how nice it is up here." David stated. "Life in the big city kind of makes you forget all this."

"It is beautiful up here. It really is." The two of them took a moment to look at all this. After the night before, they needed something beautiful to see, something to give them hope.

"Hey," David said, pulling something out of his pocket. It was the necklace he had given her the day before. The one Mia had destroyed in her fit of rage.

"You fixed it!" She exclaimed, taking it out of his hand with great enthusiasm.

"Yeah. I did." As he started to drive again, for the first time in a while, David smiled.

After they returned home, David and Mia tried to return to their every day lives. For David, he eventually recovered from his leg injuries and over time was able to walk properly again. Also, Mia kicked her addiction to drugs. The two of them both recovered physically from the whole ordeal.

However, neither of them ever healed emotionally. Whenever David closed his eyes, he would see something from that grisly night. Whether it was Eric pulling a nail out of his hand, Natalie's arm getting sliced off, or Olivia lying dead on the bathroom floor. In addition, David had nightmares too. Whenever he slept, he heard voices. Voices saying things like:

"Why are you hurting me?"

"I missed you, man…"

"Your little sister's being raped in hell!"

Every so often, David would wake up all sweaty with his heart uncontrollably pounding out of his chest.

Though what happened in the cabin didn't just take its toll on David. Mia suffered from anxiety for years. Sometimes when she was able to sleep, she would wake up screaming in the middle of the night, thinking she was still possessed. Things had been really rough for the two of them.

Four years later, David and Mia got together and decided to go to the cabin for the first time since the terrifying event that took place there. After taking the same trip they had once taken four years ago, the two of them arrived at the cabin.

But instead of going inside right away, they just sat in the car for a while. Finally, David stepped into the hot air, with Mia following him.

"Woah, check that out." He said, pointing at a small area of dead grass and weeds, which of course was where they buried the book.

"That's just creepy." Mia shook her head. "Oh look!" she excitedly said, running over to the special tree. "It's still here!" The names of their three friends could clearly be seen with a small bit of moss over them, and Grandpa's collar was still on the branch.

"It's still here!" Mia exclaimed

"Wow. Looks like I did a good job." David chuckled a bit. Though he stopped as soon as he saw the homemade defibrillator connected up to the car battery lying in the dirt.

"What do you wanna do?" David asked Mia.

"I can't even bring myself to go inside."

"Me neither."

"So then what now?" David took a deep breath. The cabin had been a family safe house for years, but there was no way that either of them wanted to keep it.

"Let's burn it down." He expected for Mia to jump all over him and object to it.

"Okay." Mia said with no opposition at all. David was somewhat surprised by her reaction, but he certainly couldn't blame her. Without wasting any time, he went into the tool shed to find anything that he could use. As he pulled a snow shovel aside, a tank of gasoline caught his eye.

"Oh yes, please." He came to the house with the tank, and doused the front porch with gasoline.

"Will that be enough?" Mia asked from behind him.

"Let's hope so." David said as he pulled his lighter out of his pocket. He took a deep breath, then knelt down and lit the gasoline. With that, the entire cabin went up in flames in a matter of seconds. He and Mia watched as the cabin burned, along with all the memories tucked inside.

After a few minutes of this, they decided it was time to leave this place once and for all.

"You ready?" David asked Mia.

"Yeah, let's go."

"Oh wait." David pulled out his knife and went to the tree with the names put in it. On the other side of it, he carved "DAVID AND MIA WERE HERE".

"How does it look?"

"That looks just downright fabulous." She replied with a smile. The first time he had seen her smile since their horrible experience before.

With David in the driver's seat and Mia in the passenger side, they drove off onto the path and started the journey back home. Before losing sight of the cabin, Mia turned to look at it one last time, taking a final glance at all her pain slowly burning and fading away.

Soon, the burning cabin went out of sight. Mia sat back into her seat and closed her eyes to take a nap. As she slowly drifted off to sleep, she could hear the sound of her mother singing...

_Baby, little baby_

_It's time to say goodbye_

_Baby, little baby_

_I'll miss you day and night_

_Baby, my sweet baby_

_I'll write you every day_

_Baby, don't cry, baby_

_I wish that I could stay_


End file.
